All posts tagged ‘Painting’

Tired of smudging and prints all over the shiny glass of your tablet’s display? Looking for something a little more realistic than your finger for writing, drawing or painting? Here are two good stylus choices for your iPad or other capacitive, touchscreen device: Adonit’s Jot Pro stylus and the Nomad Brush FLeX paintbrush stylus. Continue Reading “Stylus Review Times 2: Adonit Jot Pro and Nomad Brush FLeX” »

Kids seem to have an endless supply of creativity. Drawing, painting, writing, building, coloring, storytelling – anything can spark it off and it can lead to hours of fun. And stacks and stacks of art of all forms decorating your house.

We currently have an entire sofa dedicated to displaying a permanent exhibition of crazy Lego buildings and vehicles – which we can “never take apart again, because I want to keep them forever.” Several walls, both in her bedroom and ours, plastered with paintings and drawings, and sketch pads full of many more. There are cardboard box models on top of wardrobes and shelves and boxes full of homemade birthday, Christmas and Easter cards – complete with enough “I love you” messages to melt to stoniest of hearts.

My Pokemon mentor once said to me, “The family that games together, stays together.” He couldn’t be more correct.

A few weeks ago I shared with you how my husband and I balance being parents and gamers. My husband and I encourage our kids to play games as well. It doesn’t matter if it’s a game we made up with balls, an educational game, a board game, or a video game. Don’t get me wrong, video game play is earned and the time spent playing them is monitored.

Educational games for kids are fairly easy to find. Several companies focus on educational games for kids. Kid appropriate games that are just like mom and dad’s are a little harder to come by.

At heart, I’m really kind of a lazy mother. If I have to go to a lot of trouble to set up a fun activity, I’m apt to find a million excuses for putting it off until tomorrow. But that tendency conflicts with my desire to be a mom who says yes, a mom who makes anything possible. Take, for instance, painting. My kids love to paint — the younger set especially. A couple of years ago, I realized that the muss and fuss of set-up and clean-up was causing me to say “Not now, sweetie” more often than “Sure!”

That’s when I assembled the Art Bag.

Our family art bag

Read more of Melissa Wiley’s instructions on how to have kids painting anytime, anywhere, over at GeekMom.

Overview: Should board games be considered art? I don’t know that all of them should, but Pastiche, a recent board game from Gryphon Games, certainly makes a good case for it. The game features 34 famous (and not-so-famous) masterpieces, and the goal of the game is to collect the correct paint cards to complete each commission.

Players: 2 to 4

Ages: 10 and up

Playing Time: 45 to 60 minutes

Retail: $49.99

Rating: A masterpiece of a game that works on several levels.

Who Will Like It? Artists and art lovers will get a kick out of this board game based on famous paintings. The mechanics are a combination of tile-laying and resource management, but playing the game is a low-stress experience.

I’ve heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but being there is worth so many more, maybe a jillion or so.

Last month I visited the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I’m not a fan of modern art, but I loved Mark Rothko’s No. 14. I really loved it, which was surprising, because normally all I really care about in painting is the Italian Renaissance.

I came home and showed a picture of Rothko’s big painting to my wife and my kids. They were all utterly unimpressed. I searched for more pictures to show them and was amazed at how little the pictures look like the painting. This painting has heart and soul that cannot be captured in a photograph.

In a photograph, Rothko’s 14 looks like two big blobs, one orange, one blue-back. In person, I felt this painting. The top part is the warmth and love and happy noise of my kitchen at home. The bottom part is that vibrant, magical, deep, deep blue of the sky an hour after sunset. It’ll mean different things to you, of course, but if you have a chance to walk through the SFMOMA, spend some time with this one.

Blogger skierpage has captured the feeling of this painting exceptionally well.

It’s not the Titanic, it’s the iceberg that sank the Titanic. It’s suffused with pure emotion, but it’s a receding internal burn.

All I’m trying to say is that the Internet is great, and technology is great, and your mega-megapixel camera is great, but but don’t forget about the real world. It’s so much more HD than HD. It’s so much more 3D than 3D. Spend time away from your screens. Savor the real stuff.